Gone like Clockwork

Yet another illustration project that is destined never to see the light of day, except here on my lovely blog. Talk about vanity publishing. These lil' clockwork fellas were for a client's christmas ads. I really liked them too. My creative director however, didn't. So aside from giving him the V's behind his back and putting laxatives in his tea*, there's not much I can do about it. Do let me know if you like them though. I'm still feeling sensitive.

*this is a lie. I never make the tea. I have minions who do that for me now.

Together in Electric Dreams

My bessie mate Vivienne is having a birthday party at some point in the near future and she asked me to do her an emailable invitation. Miss Vivienne is the queen of dressing up and parties in general, so she always themes her parties. She did Alice in Wonderland one year, and had a mad hatter's tea party in a secret garden. This year it's going to be an 80s themed elecxtravaganza titled 'Electric Dreams', and in the spirit of both the excessive 80s, and Vivvy's madness, this was the final result. She likey. Yes she do.

Iconography

I've discovered I love designed icons. I've been doing loads of them for the day job. I prob shouldn't name the client or say what these icons are for as it isn't live yet; so you'll just have to guess. Or simply enjoy their gradienty splendour. Mmm... icons...

Squidge Alert

Now I think you should know the answer to this question, but: HOW CUTE IS MY NEPHEW BRODAN? Squidgy Scrumptious.

What a Nightmare

Actually, misleading post title. This was actually a pretty painless job. Here be the latest Noir poster. This year's Halloween club won't be restricted to Glasgow. The guys are taking the show on the road to Edinburgh and London too. This poster will double up for the Scottish leg, but a new poster may be required for London. We shall play it by ear!

I used both hand drawn and photoshopped elements in this one and I quite like the combination. Pencil line scratchiness meets slick looking photographic bits. A new technique methinks. Some recycling may occur.

The Halloween club is always massive, so see you there?

I have the best friends

It was my birthday this weekend, and aside from receiving lots of lovely messages on my facebook page, I also met up with two of my very favourite people and did lunch and cocktails and cava and dancing in not-so-sunny Edinburgh, and received the most wonderful gifts.

I'm always a bit surprised when people get me birthday presents. Its genuinely a part of the birthday process that I forget about, looking forward instead to having a boozy giggle in a pub somewhere. However, when you have friends as thoughtful as mine who know me so well, the gifts they give are really really touching and I completely adore them all.

My mate Lizzie found this completely glorious vanity set - something I've been idly looking for for years and never found one in quite the right colour/condition to merit buying. She found the most perfect one possible in an antiques shop in Peebles and delivered it up to me as a 29th birthday present. I nearly cried.

My other bessie mate Viv gave me a whole series of beautifully wrapped little trinkets. Not least of which was this stunning pillbox she found in a flea market in Spain. This photo really doesn't do it justice, and my shots of the other two completely gorgeous tins she got me (of paprika and violet lipbalm) are equally shoddy so you shall just have to trust me that they are gooorgeous. She also got me a lovely little purple babushka Russian doll who now lives on my mantlepiece.

Yet another bessie mate Sarah, who lives in New Zealand :-(, sent me a bloody brilliant button eyed rag doll who I have named Vern, which she bought while on a shoot in Singapore and who is going to come live on my desk at work. She knows I love crazy little characters, and florals and teal/turquoise so Vern is my new favourite mascot.

I'm a lucky lucky bugger.

Knew that would come in handy...

See? Even if a job doesn't work out, you usually find that in the process you have discovered a new style or technique that can be recycled in another job. No work is a waste of time in that respect. So even though the Smart car thing didn't work out, developing that style of illustration meant that I saved time when it came to doing this job for a very good friend of mine.

A mate of hers is getting married (seems to be all the rage) and she commissioned me to do her a series of illustrations as her wedding gift. This is the first. They are all of a theme; that this friend of hers is always throwing herself into whatever she does. At men, at the bar, out of planes, etc.

Time pressures meant that I couldn't do my post-production photoshop texture bit, as in the Smart car job, but she was very very happy with the result and toddled off to get it framed.

Style-recycling. Its the new plagiarism.

Oh poot

Wee bit disappointed this morning. A nice illustration job that came my way isn't going to happen now. Sniff.

My bessie mate Sazzle (who is 27 this weekend - the day after yours truly turns 29 - happy birthday to us!) works for a big ad agency in Auckland, and was kind enough to give me the opportunity to have stab at some illys for Smart Car. As is often the way with such projects though, my services aren't required anymore. Oh well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Something good may end up coming of it! And so it is posted here. Its kinda along the lines of the illys I did for my Mum's book - that sorta screenprinted, retro, grainy style thing.

I'm liking this new style, and I'd like to do some more like this so if anyone knows anyone...

Before they were famous

I recently completed the longest running job in history, and I felt the need to mark this momentous occasion with a blog post. Due to my own crapness, and various other reasons we shall put down to the fates buggering with me, I have only just managed to fulfil a promise I made to my very good and talented friend Matt Stalker a year and a half ago. Mr Stalker and his associates the Fables have produced an EP of completely beautiful and haunting folk songs called 'Press your ear to my chest, listen', and Matt asked me to design the EP artwork (in January 2000-and-bloody-7).

No doubt if the pressing urgency of a gig in Newcastle hadn't arisen, the job would have rambled on for quite a bit longer. But I seem to work better when there's a big fat deadline looming over my head. So I promptly pulled my finger out my ass and got on with it. Luckily for me, budget being an issue, the sleeve was pretty simple - just a folded card really, into which Matt, presumably with his ladyfriend Laura, had to hand apply 150 foam dots to hold the cds on. But God love em, they did it, and by all the accounts the gig was a triumph, with punters asking for the CDs to be signed (down solely to Mr Stalker's talents I might add, and not because they were so enamoured with my illustrations, but, still...).

So anyway - here is the finished result. It doesn't look like a year and a half's work because, erm, its not - but its still rather nice. We went for the carved-into-wood look to compliment the folky, crafty, love-lorn nature of Matt's music, and the swirls were inspired by the EP title suggesting breath, and snatches of lyrics relating to smoke and stormy water. All a little cryptic, but who cares? Its pretty.

Have a listen to Matt's music on his myspace page here. You heard him here first.

Word of the day: Ambigram

A lovely new client of mine is getting married later on this summer, and she asked me to have a look at doing her wedding invites. Now its going to be a very classy affair and she's a very classy lady so we are going the whole letterpress, lined envelopes and cream stock route. BUT, she really wanted me to look at creating a monogram based around her and her future-husband's initials (L & J), and the date of their nuptials (8th Sept 2008). So we can blind emboss it and do all the touchy feely stuff that graphic designers get so excited about.

Now, since the date was almost palindromic (8.11.8), we both really wanted the monogram to be as symmetrical as possible. I had a bit of a eureka moment when I realised that in some script fonts, if you invert the capital L you get something that looks a lot like a J. Cue two romantically entwined initials, bound together by the date of their wedding. Which looks exactly the same when you turn it upside down! Wow. That's, like, symbolism.

My client, however, pointed out that I had not in fact invented anything new. Such things are called ambigrams and you can find some absolutely stunning examples of them here. All of which make my efforts look a little shoddy. Rats.

Witness the cuteness

HOW CUTE IS MY NEPHEW IRVINE?! Correct answer: extremely cute, Auntie Lele.

Scrumptious. x

We wants it

GIMME!